


when you're fast asleep

by FanaticDomainExpert



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Bring on the torches and pitchforks, F/M, Sorry Not Sorry, angst like whoa, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 14:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6332785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanaticDomainExpert/pseuds/FanaticDomainExpert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wakes up screaming.</p>
<p>It is not the first time this has happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you're fast asleep

He wakes up screaming.

It is not the first time this has happened 

 

He wakes up screaming.

By now, he knows the drill.

 

He wakes up screaming.

Tries to calm his erratic heart.

Automatically reaches for the flask by his bedside, before he jerks his arm back and cradles it against his chest.

Stares at his hand.

There's no flask by his bedside.

He doesn't drink.

(chains, cutting into his arms, lowering, lowering, he wants, he can't, and he's so tired, so tired)

He'll drag himself up and out of bed, stumbling his way into the dark bathroom.

He'll turn the light on and immediately turn it off again, fearing what he'll see in the mirror, even though he knows that he is whole and well and not covered in his own blood.

He'll run the tap and try to stop himself from flinching at the sound of running water.

(he's so tired)

He'll shake and he'll cry and he'll scream and scream and scream without knowing why.

The sound of himself screaming has become more familiar than any corporeal thing in his life. 

And if, by chance, he manages to force himself outside and into the world, he'll find himself drawn to the flash of a red leather jacket in his periphery, trying to keep the person wearing it in his line of sight until he realizes that the shade of their hair is all wrong.

 

Sometimes he doesn't dream of torture.

Sometimes he wakes up with her name on his tongue, his heart in her hands, and thinks that this is almost worse than his perpetual dreams of a man with fire for hair and a three-headed dog.

He tries to keep her face from dissolving into a wisp, but he can't, he wants, he's so so tired.

On these days, he doesn't bother trying to stem his tears, curled up on his bed fiddling with a ring that doesn't belong to him.

He doesn't know how he got it, but the steady weight of the metal in his hands is the only way he fights off the crushing despair of losing someone who you can no longer remember.

Hours pass.

His muscles strum with the discomfort of staying in the same position for so long. 

(there is a woman, pulling him out, golden hair dank and forehead shining with sweat)

(she is beautiful)

(he remembers now)

(she loves him and he loves her)

(her name is Emma Swan and she loves him and he loves her)

(he loves her)

(he)

 

 

He wakes up screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Cinderella, because I am Disney trash af.


End file.
